Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,275

Here are the key events on day 1,275 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Military aid

• The Netherlands will send two Patriot air defence systems and about 300 personnel to NATO ally Poland to protect a hub for military aid sent to Ukraine, Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

• European NATO leaders must not be naive when discussing a Ukraine peacekeeping force but face up to the reality that they would need to deploy tens of thousands of troops to the country for the long term, the head of Germany’s soldiers’ union, Colonel Andre Wuestner, said.

• Wuestner, who heads up the German Armed Forces Association representing more than 200,000 active and retired soldiers, said European leaders should not play down the military task in Ukraine but be honest about the challenges, even though any quick ceasefire with Russia seemed unlikely.

Regional security

• Russia’s nuclear shield should be strengthened in the coming years due to the “colossal threats”, said Alexey Likhachev, head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation.

• Belarus is assessing how best to ramp up domestic production of missiles, including exploring how to equip its Polonez rocket launcher systems with nuclear warheads, Alexander Volfovich, head of Belarus’ State Security Council, told reporters.
• NATO member Lithuania has declared a 90-kilometre (56-mile) long no-fly zone near its capital along the country’s border with Belarus, in response to drones entering from the neighbouring country.

Peace talks

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused European leaders of trying to undermine progress which he said had been made at last week’s US-Russia summit in Alaska on a possible peace deal in Ukraine.
• Lavrov reiterated Russian concerns about the way European discussions on security guarantees for Ukraine were being conducted without Moscow’s input.
• Lavrov also said that while Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his readiness to meet Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, there are some issues that need to be resolved before such a meeting could happen.
• Zelenskyy said Kyiv would like a “strong reaction” from the US if Putin was not willing to sit down for a bilateral meeting with him. The Ukrainian leader also accused Russia of trying to avoid a meeting with him.

• Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.
• Hungary has offered to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and the offer still stands, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a podcast broadcast on social media.

• Military chiefs from the US and a number of European countries have presented options to their national security advisers for providing security guarantees to Ukraine, officials said.

Politics and diplomacy

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un lauded “heroic” North Korean troops who fought for Russia in the war against Ukraine, in a ceremony decorating soldiers of the army’s overseas operation, according to state media KCNA.

• A Ukrainian man has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of coordinating attacks on three Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022, officials said. The attack largely severed Russian gas supplies to Europe and had been described by both Moscow and the West as an act of sabotage.

• French President Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the two leaders coordinating their positions on the war in Ukraine.

Economy

• Russia’s currency, the rouble, fell slightly, despite rising oil prices, amid little news on a resolution to the conflict in Ukraine.

• Ukraine’s dollar bonds suffered their largest losses in more than four months as the prospect of a peace deal with Russia appeared to fade.